


home

by a_secondhand_sorrow



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: But also not, Canon Compliant, Dad Hopper, F/M, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mileven, Spoilers, adjusting to the move, and Will is kind of that friend, and mike. briefly, basically the whole party is mentioned, but past tense :(, but they’re not in it, el bonding with all of the byers really, joyce is a Good Mom she’s Trying, mike is the first home el had and that’s that on that, poor el needs a friend, post-season 3, this whole fic is a spoiler, will and el learning to be siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 09:45:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19743136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_secondhand_sorrow/pseuds/a_secondhand_sorrow
Summary: Homewas a constantly changing, evolving, growing word, the meaning shifting and shaping. It had just begun to take root in her mind before it was ripped up again, each and every time, but maybe this time–Maybe this time nothing would change.Or maybe this time, she’d have a home for good.(or: el settles into her new home while learning from her past ones)





	home

Maybe El was inexperienced, but the new neighborhood-with newly-paved streets, leaves ruffling in the breeze, and an overall silence that landed on everything-was extremely similar to the old neighborhood.

(But, at the same time, extremely different. There were no memories here, only things that appeared so similar they made El’s heart ache. She had to remind herself there was nothing familiar. Max wouldn’t be coming over to stay the night. Dustin wouldn’t be biking past them on the way to school. Mike wouldn’t be stopping by every morning with a gentle smile.)

The truck pulled to the side of the road, allowing space for Jonathan to pull into the driveway. El was startled out of her thoughts, which mostly drifted back to the goodbyes she’d said not long before and the letter folded in the pocket of her (Hop’s) flannel. The hum of the engine had been a welcome distraction, one that reminded her of the static of a TV, but once it was gone, she was left suspended in space.

She looked across the seats to where Joyce sat, tapping her fingers against the steering wheel. Will and Jonathan, either actually in better spirits or putting on a good show of it, had already walked arm-in-arm to the front door. Joyce shook her head slightly, staring out at the new house. Her voice was thin with the cheer she forced into it as she slid out of the truck. “Well, welcome home, everyone.”

And all at once, that one word- _home_ -choked off any other thought she could have.

_Home_ was a constantly changing, evolving, growing word, the meaning shifting and shaping. It had just begun to take root in her mind before it was ripped up again, each and every time, but maybe this time–

_“Eleven,” Brenner says, hand resting at the top of her shoulder blades. She can feel the cold of it through the hospital gown, just as she can feel the chilly and even stares of the men around her on the back of her head. “It’s alright. You have so much power, Eleven. You can do something… amazing. Your power will do something amazing.”_

_She curls her hand into a fist by her side, barely knowing what it means. “After?” She says, looking around at the audience they’ve gathered._

_“They’re good, Eleven. They want to see what you can do.” There’s a more of something else In his time, lowered so that only she can hear it. Something that locks her behind heavy doors with no light. She nods. Brenner relents, ever so slightly. “How about a story, when it’s over? A story, once you’re home.”_

_Eleven nods, mind returning to the room Papa calls her home. In her room, nothing hurts her-she is alone, and sometimes there is Papa, and she can’t do anything to make him angry with just the wiry bed and cold desk she has in there. There are no bad men, no heavy doors, no disappointment in his voice. He rarely refers to it as home, but when he does, she softens. Home is what they have in the stories. That is her home._

She slid her hand over on the door, finding the unlock. She’d cried enough already.

Jonathan and Will and Joyce has already begun unloading boxes. She wished, for the hundredth time, that she had just an ounce of her power-just a little bit, to take that one burden off of their minds. But instead of her power, she had a high-pitched whine in her ears, and so she joined them in carrying boxes into the foyer.

There were a few pieces of furniture there, already, that Joyce had brought over in anticipation of the move. There was something so familiar about-

_“Oh, that’s our La-Z-Boy. It’s where my dad sleeps. Do you want to try it?”_

No, there was something else-this room was so empty, but somehow she could see dust and clutter everywhere, and a voice cut through the silence.

_Hopper is silent as he unlocks the door, stopping only to kick his shoes against the door frame. El watches him do it, studying the way the snow falls off of his boots. Her own sneakers are coated in snow, so she follows his example and kicks them against the doorframe once he’s moved inside._

_“My grandmother lived here, a long time ago. I mainly just use it for storage now.” He grimaces, shifting through a couple of piles of clutter. El can feel a sneeze building from the dust. “Lot of, uh, history here.” He turns to her, smiling again. “So uh...what d’ya think? It’s a work in progress, it takes a little imagination,” which he punctuates by fiddling with a curtain, “but, uh… you know, once we fix it up it’s gonna be nice. Real nice.” He looks back over at her, looking proud. “It’s your new home.”_

_She looks back at him. She didn’t really follow most of what he was saying, but she was stuck on one part. “Home.”_

_Hop nods, and she feels a swell of affection that she can feel from him as well._

“El?” Joyce said, breaking through her reverie. She was just beside her, a hand on her shoulder, hair swept behind one ear. “Are you okay?”

El nodded after only a moment’s pause. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Her voice tripped over the syllables, but Joyce’s had, too, so she thought it was okay.

“Okay,” Joyce gently moved her hand off of El’s shoulder and between her shoulder blades. Her voice was gentle, and something in it reminded El of the first week away from the lab-Mike’s voice in the blanket tent and Joyce’s in the abandoned classroom of Hawkins Middle.

(Just thinking of it made her heart ache.)

“I think Jonathan and Will have already claimed rooms, but you can go find one you’d like, okay?” Joyce rubbed her hand across her shoulders slightly, tone still gentle and unbalanced. El nodded once again, clutching the box of her belongings closer to her stomach. With a final smile at Joyce, she took off down the hallway.

El could hear the sounds of Will and Jonathan settling in. She could hear music, faintly-probably Jonathan-and various thuds and chatter. There was a door at the end of the hall to a large bedroom, that must be for Joyce. She tried a few doors, eventually settling on a smaller room that seemed to be filled with light from the large window facing the back yard. There was a ledge just beneath it, perfect to sit on.

She liked it. It almost surprised her.

Setting the box down onto the floor, she turned back towards the door, hand pushing at the edge. She’d meant to close it, but something, or a flurry of somethings, made her pause.

_“Please, for the sake of your poor old dad-“_

She shook her head, closing her eyes, as it stopped her from closing the door all the way.

_She moves uncertainly into the small room off of the basement, immediately turning back to the door. Holding the clothes tight to her chest, she looks at the boy again, who looks so uncertain just outside of the doorframe. “Okay, well, I’ll-”_

_Her hand darts out to grasp the door just before he can close it._

_“You...don’t want it closed?”_

_She shakes her head._

_“Okay, well, how about we just keep the door…” he pauses to ease the door until she can only see a sliver of his face. She thinks he’ll close it the whole way, but he doesn’t. “Just like this. Is this better?”_

_Eleven nods once. “Yes.”_

She smiled a little, the memory long forgotten before then. She hadn’t known Mike, then. She didn’t even know his name. She didn’t love him.

Her stomach turned over briefly at the thought, and suddenly this door is not just the door in front of her, but Mike’s just opened it to make sure she’s okay and she’s _promis_ ing that she is, and he’s just eased it shut again, and she’s just slammed it while Hop is on the other side and–

_She can feel Mike’s hand slide up to her cheek as her own slides back, ever so slightly, to his hair. They’re lost in the moment, sparks flying beneath her closed eyes. This should be entirely familiar, but it’s still exciting and new; she can still feel a little jolt in her chest every time their lips connect. As Mike’s hand cups her cheek and her hands land on his shoulders, there’s something familiar and comforting in the gesture. It feels almost–_

_Hop, who El forgot about, suddenly shouts “I said three. Inch. Minimum!”_

_They break apart, startled, and before El can think about it she slams the door shut just before Hop makes it to the doorway, risking looking back at Mike. She allows herself a moment to melt into giggles as she looks at the slightly dumbfounded look on Mike’s face before they maintain positions._

She almost closed the door then, but Hopper’s voice echoed in her mind again, different from the angry, protective voice before.

_“But, please, if you don’t mind for the sake of your poor old dad, keep the door open three inches.”_

She did, leaving the door ajar by three inches, one hand drifting to her pocket. Feeling tears prick the back of her eyes, she tried to force it back down. Suddenly, she let out a slight laugh, thinking about the ridiculousness of it–he’d written a whole speech to give them, and never had the courage to give it.

El relented. She began to reach for the letter, fingers smoothing the creases in it.

**_I think maybe that’s why I came in here, to maybe try and stop that change. To turn back the clock, to make things go back to how they were. But I know that’s naive._ **

_Hop looks up at her, grin slowly spreading across his face. He holds up the cardboard square in his hands, as though expecting her to react, before sliding a black circle (a record, as she learned) out of it and placing it on the turntable. To her surprise, music starts, notes startling the dust in the air of the cabin. Hopper appears positively elated, eyes alight as he starts dancing. El isn’t even sure what to do, so she laughs softly. Hop doesn’t seem to mind. He stops after another moment, eyes filled with more happiness than before. He claps his hands once. “Alright, let's get to work.”_

Jonathan’s music and a knock on the doorframe brought her back to the present. She quickly folded the letter and shoved it back into her pocket, reaching up to her face. Even though she’d already cried enough that day, her cheeks were predictably wet.

“Can I come in?”

It was Will. He sounded better than he had just before they left. She nodded, still trying to clear her face. She looked back down at the box of her things, trying to discern something to distract herself from the new tears that blurred her eyes. Footsteps sounded behind her, and it sounded like Will settled down to sit on the floor. She decided to join him, tears and all, sitting opposite him. His back was to the wall, her calf pressed up against the box. Something in his face softened a bit when he saw her tears, but he didn’t say anything. She was thankful, although she wondered if it was only because his own eyes were still bloodshot and his cheeks blotchy.

“What do you have?” She said, voice even more uneven than it had been before. Will looked down at the comics in his hand.

“Oh, uh-Max said you really liked the Wonder Woman comics, and I had a couple, and I know this move has been-” he broke off, clearly at a loss for words. His finger traced the spine and staples of the first comic he held, almost like a nervous tic.

“...a lot,” El said, and Will looked a little relieved that he didn’t have to continue as he nodded. She smiled.

Will held the comics out to her, and she accepted them, pulling them back towards her. Her eyes widened as she flipped through them, and she looked back up at Will, a genuine smile spreading over her face. “Want to read them?”

_(”This is why you can’t just hang out with Mike all the time. This is Wonder Woman–she’s from Paradise Island, where’s there's all female warriors…”)_

That’s how they ended up sprawled on the floor next to each other, flipping through each comic as Will provided commentary for what was happening and Eleven soaked in the story. She paused over one page as she heard rustling in the hallway just before the music stopped. She frowned a little. “Was that Jonathan’s music?”

“Yeah. I think it makes him feel...better about this, I guess.” Will paused, clearly making some decision in his head. “He used to do it a lot, when my dad still lived with us and he’d fight with my mom.“ He swallowed, more shaky than normal. His voice came out a little thicker than before. “I can tell him not to play it so loud in the future if you want.”

El quickly shook her head, eyes falling back to the comic, as dancing Hopper filled her vision again. “I like it.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but she could hear the smile in Will’s voice. “Me too.”

And time passed like that, with them chatting about Wonder Woman in lieu of unpacking, only disturbed by a knock on the doorframe from Joyce.

“You kids okay in here?” She said, hand curling around the edge of the door. El and Will looked up at her, smiles still on their faces from their discussion and the distraction it provided. That was enough for Joyce, and soon she was smiling, too, and walking in to sit near them. “Now who’s this?”

“This,” Will said, flourishing the comic book they’d previously had open, “is Wonder Woman.”

Joyce listened intently to the full-blown explanation Will and El launched into with admirable patience, legs crossed and eyebrows knitted together as she tried to piece together the story line. There was something else evident in her posture and face, relief spreading through it, especially when Jonathan joined them to stand in the doorway and provide helpful commentary. (“Mom, everyone knows about the Amazons!” “I’m old, Jonathan!”)

Their impromptu family greeting was shattered by a phone ringing. They all straightened up immediately, and Jonathan practically bolted from the room to pick it up. “Nancy!” He said, loudly enough that everyone still in El’s room would stop listening. He immediately lowered his voice and retreated further away; only a slight murmur could be heard from across the hall.

El could feel her face fall, although she didn’t mean to show that disappointment, and Will deflated a bit across from her. Joyce, probably noting the shift in tone, dropped her eyes down to her wrist, where she studied her watch face and began to sit up. “Oh, it’s almost seven, we should probably–let me have a look and find some dinner for you guys.”

_Hop is late again. El tries not to let the worry build like a knot in her chest, but it does, to the point where soap operas can’t distract her anymore. She makes sure the microwave dinners are ready with foil over them, just like Hop taught her, and she stares down at the eggos between her and Hop’s places at the table. She can hear his voice in her head as she looks at them. “Dinner first, then dessert.”_

_She eats them. He’s late; it’s what he deserves._

_Hop knocks not long after, when she’s holed herself up in her room. She unlocks the door automatically, the tension already easing._

_“What did I say? Dinner first, then dessert.”_

_El bites back a smile, not willing to give him the satisfaction. She waits another moment to come out of her room and cross to the table._

_“You’re late,” she says, and she can see the same tension she’d felt earlier in his own eyes. It eases as soon as she comes into view._

With Joyce gone, the air of her room felt stifling as it mingled with the newly returned silence. She lay the comic she’d been holding on the floorboards, tucking one leg under the other and propping her knee up so she could rest her elbow on it and her cheek on her hand. Will looked up from across the room to return her gaze, sighing and letting his own comic fall to the ground.

“I wish we could have stayed,” he said finally, letting his hand fall to the floor at his side. “I mean, I know why we couldn’t, or...didn’t want to, but it still feels wrong.”

El nodded. She was afraid to say anything, as her throat had narrowed dangerously with Will’s confession. Down the hall, still on the phone, she could hear Jonathan laugh at something Nancy said. “Some things are okay to be away from,” she said finally, not looking at Will. As the letter burned a hole in her pocket, she wasn’t entirely sure she was away from them. “Others are…” she cut off when she felt her throat constricting again.

“It hurts to be gone,” Will said simply. “From school. From the old house. From the party. Our friends.”

El felt something then other than sorrow. A surge of pride, maybe, at the fact that Will had acknowledged her as part of the party. An edge of some affection, different to the one she felt with the rest of the party or Mike-something similar to how she’d felt wrapped up in one of Hop’s hugs or when she got one of Joyce’s smiles. She smiled a little, looking back at Will. “It’s good to hurt, though. That means we care.”

Will offered her a tired smile back, a similar sentiment buried in his eyes. He looked out to her window. “I guess.” He knocked his foot against hers. When he continued, there was a good-natured teasing to his voice. “Bet you miss Mike.”

She tried to keep her smile on her face, although she felt it waver as she looked down to her lap. “Yeah,” she said finally, voice tripping again.

It seemed like Will was going to say something else, but before he could static sounded from her box of belongings.

(For a moment, she allowed herself to close her eyes and pretend that she was back there, and looking for him–nothing but darkness on all sides, water calm around her feet, a speck that might have been Mike far away from her. As she opened them again, she could have sworn she felt water under her for just a second.)

“El?” The voice said, and El’s heart flipped with the familiarity of it. Mike spoke again. “El, do you copy?”

She and Will quickly looked at each other, the same excitement crossing their faces. They scrambled across the floor to the box. El was the one who got there first, and she quickly pulled her walkie out and pressed the button so she could speak. “Mike?”

_”Hey, uh, I never asked your name.”_

_Eleven looks up towards him, away from the blankets she’d been fiddling with. She looks at him for a moment before shifting her gaze back down to pull the sleeve of her shirt up, revealing the 011 inked into her skin._

_“Is that real?” Mike says, excitement leaking into his voice as he leans forward. She jerks to look at him quickly, moving away from him. He recognizes it immediately, a foreign but gentle expression on his face._

_“Sorry, I’ve just...never seen a kid with a tattoo before. What’s it mean? Eleven?”_

_She looks back to him, eyes guarded. Unsure of how else to say it, she points to herself._

_“That’s your name?”_

_Eleven nods._

_“Eleven. Okay, um, well my name’s Mike, short for Michael.” After a moment’s pause, he says “Maybe we can call you El, short for Eleven.”_

_She nods quickly, immediately interested by this shorter form of her name._

_“Um, well, okay. Goodnight, El,” he says, a gentle smile the last thing he gives her before standing and moving towards the stairs._

_From the blanket fort, El calls “goodnight, Mike.”_

“El!” He said, and then there was some scuffling on the other end that sounded like overlapping voices. Dustin’s voice sounded first. “Is Will there too?”

“Yeah,” El said, letting Will lean over and speak hurriedly into the walkie. She was grateful for the chance to gather her thoughts as Will chatted with Dustin and Lucas and Max. Mike was mostly quiet; she hoped he’d still stay for another moment afterwards. She wanted to hear his voice.

They’d been separated before. There were 353 days, marked down by calls like tallies on the wall of a cell, that both remembered with painful clarity. And, of course, before she closed the gate, they thought they’d lost each other again. But now-now the only thing separating them was the move. No stupid fights. No bad men.

(No angry Hop, she realized with a twinge. She’d rather have the angry Hop, still.)

Now there was the move and grief and uncertainty.

She hadn’t realized how zoned out she’d been until Joyce called for dinner. Will looked at El for one moment, immediately telling the others that he had to go to dinner.

“I’ll tell Mom you’ll be a minute,” he said, making sure everyone could hear him. She smiled at him, hoping he could see the thankfulness in it.

There was some noise on the other end for a minute after Will left. She shifted the walkie to her other hand so she could stand and make her way the ledge of her windowsill. It was smooth and cool under her fingertips; as she shifted to sit on it, Mike’s voice came from the walkie.

“El? You still there?”

“Yeah. I have a minute.” Before Mike could say anything, she spoke again, the words crushing her with a memory of another time-when Hop was still there and Mike only lived a bike ride away, where they saw each other every day without a care in the world. “I miss you.”

”I miss you, too,” Mike said, not a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve missed you since you started to drive away.”

El leaned her head back against the window. She’d still been crying, then, and Mike might have been crying too at that point. It was all a blur, and the window against her forehead then felt too similar to the window of the truck she’d leaned her forehead against.

“Remember what we talked about? In your room? After the teddy bear?”

El smiled a little apprehensively, her heart picking up speed. “Yes.”

_“They’ll come back. I know they will.”_

_El startles a little. She didn’t know anyone was there; she feels a sheepish smile settle on her face, but she turns just in time to see Mike stop and reach for the teddy bear she’d had trouble getting. Her smile turned more genuine._

_His face is an array of emotions, all hidden nicely behind a cheery façade. El tries to see past it, but all she can feel is a surge of affection. She wishes he wouldn’t ignore his needs for hers, but she appreciates it anyway. Mike’s smiling a little, eyes searching her face, as he hands her the bear._

_“Thanks,” she says, and she’s not quite happy with how uneven her voice sounds. He ignores it and smiles._

_“You packed your walkie, right?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“Because you know that I’m going to steal cerebro from Dustin and call you so much that you’re going to have to turn it off, right?”_

_She laughs, feeling a little of the tension held in her shoulders drop. She clears her throat, smile falling. “Did you ask your mom? About Thanksgiving?”_

_His eyebrows knit together for a moment, but he responds after a second. “Oh, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah, I got the okay. I’ll be there.” They smile at each other. “And then I was thinking maybe you could come up here for Christmas-and Will too. You can come before or after Christmas or whatever Mrs. Byers wants, but I was thinking Christmas Day could be super fun because we’d all have cool new presents to play with and-” he breaks off, shaking his head, and El can practically hear the ‘oh my god why did I say that’ churning through his head. “Sorry, that made me sound like a seven year old.”_

_“I like presents, too,” she says, hugging the bear closer to her. She can feel her eyes starting to shine._

_“Yeah, cool, yeah, I-I like presents, too.”_

_She looks down for a second, looking back at him halfway through her eyelashes. “Cool.”_

_El brushes last him, intending on bringing the bear to Mrs. Byers, but falls short as she feels Mike tense immediately as she moves past him. She knows he’s beating himself up, and her heart feels heavy._

_“Mike?”_

_He turns back toward her, tone forced and light. “Yeah?”_

_She fiddles with the hem of her flannel, avoiding his eyes. “Remember that day,” she looks up and away for a moment, the words stuck in her throat,and when they come out they stumble, “at the cabin? You were talking to Max.”_

_“I… don’t think that I follow.”_

_“You talked about your feelings. Your heart.”_

_His features draw together as he takes a breath. “Oh. Oh! Well, yeah, that, man, that was…so long ago. You know, it was really heat of the moment stuff, and we were arguing–I don’t really remember–what did I say, exactly?”_

_But they both remember. It hangs in the air between them, uncertain in where it belongs. We can’t remember seeing Mike look so nervous when he was trying to be calm._

_“Mike,” El says, pushing her way forward to him. She’s said his name a million times, but this time feels new, somehow. It felt different on her lips right before what she’s about to say. Her heart is nearly leaping into her throat as he looks back at her, calm expression finally dropped. He looks a little shell shocked. She brings one hand up to his cheek, eyes searching his. He knows what she’s going to say a moment before she says it. “I love you too.”_

_And she kisses him. She tries to ignore the way her heart flips over as she does. She tries to push a million things into that kiss, things she wants to say but can’t quite manage to-I’m sorry I’m leaving you again. I know, you don’t have to say it back. I love you. I love you anyways. I miss you, and I’ll keep missing you. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave. I’m coming back. I promise._

_When she pulls away, smiling softly at his shocked expression, she feels almost like she’s finally found something–like she’s finally safe. Like she’s home._

_That feeling drops away with every step she takes away from him, and she scrunches her face up against the tide of emotions building up inside of her._

“I know I didn’t say anything, afterwards. I actually, I just kind of stared at you like a… goldfish, or something.” Mike’s voice cut through the memory, and she smiles at the awkwardness in it. “But...I did mean what I said in the cabin. And I still mean it. Now, I mean. And then. And–”

“Mike?” El cut him off gently, knowing he could continue on for a while.

“What I’m trying to say is. I love you. Or–I love you too, too.”

El could feel her heart nearly burst. She grinned like an idiot even though Mike couldn’t see her. “I know.” She paused, letting herself be content for a moment.

“Wow, thanks.”

She laughed, and in that moment, it didn’t feel like he was so far away, even though she longed to be able to touch him–to look over and see him grinning next to her on her windowsill, and to take his hand and intertwine it in hers until he tugs her over and presses a kiss to her cheek.

“We’ll make it,” Mike said through the walkie. “We’ve been separated before. We can talk now,

and we’ll see each other at Thanksgiving. That’s only-what, a month away?”

El smiled. “Longest month of my life.”

“Yeah.”

“El?” It’s Joyce; her voice sounded oddly distorted in the new house. “Are you coming to dinner?”

El bit her lip. “I’ve got to go. Dinner.”

There was static for a moment. “Yeah, me too. But I’ll call you-well, whenever Dustin stops using Cerebro to call Suzie. Whenever I can steal it back.”

“I’ll be waiting,” El said, voice uneven again around her near whisper.

“Goodbye, El.”

“Goodbye, Mike.”

She lowered the antenna of the walkie, taking a deep breath. Once she felt like she could breathe again, she set it down, sliding off of the windowsill.

She left the door open three inches just as she left.

**Author's Note:**

> guess who watched stranger things 3 in three days and wrote this in a blind haze? that’s right. it’s me.
> 
> can’t believe it’s gonna be another 2 years until st4. maybe I’ll write more. we’ll find out. check out my tumblrs @itstrulyastrangerthing and @a-secondhand-sorrow for more. 
> 
> comment and kudos and I’ll owe you my first born. try not to turn them into a government experiment.


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